Social Determinants of Health, Structural Racism, and the Impact on Child and Adolescent Mental Health

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a greater emphasis on examining the factors, particularly the social factors, that affect health outcomes and contribute to population health inequities. The social determinants of health, as defined by the World Health Organization (WHO), are “the conditions in which people are born, grow, work, live, and develop, and the wider set of forces, including economic policies, social norms, and political systems, that shape the conditions of daily life and impact health outcomes.”1 These social determinants are influenced by the current political and economic environment in which an individual lives, as well as the long-standing sociocultural norms that have been sewn into the fabric of society. Structural racism is an underlying force that influences all social determinants of mental health in the United States. This article will examine the social determinants of health in youth through the lens of structural racism.